4. Grammatical differences

British English	American English
Absence of necessity:
needn’t / don’t need to	don’t need to
After demand, insist, etc.:
should do	subjubctive (should is not used)
Regular and irregular verb:
1. burn – burned – burned burn – burnt – burnt 2. spell – spelled – spelled spell – spelt – spelt 3. get – got – got	1. burn – burned - burned 2. spell – spelled – spelled 3. get – got – gotten
An action in the past with a result at the moment of speech:
Present Perfect	Present Perfect or Past Indefinite

Today English is increasingly being used as a global language. Non-native speakers of English now outnumber native speakers 3 to 1. The new English speakers aren’t just passively absorbing the language – they are shaping it. New Englishes are mushrooming all over the globe, ranging from “Englog,” spoken in the Philippines, to “Hinglish” the mix of Hindi and English that now crops up everywhere from fast food advertisements to South-Asian college campuses. In South Africa, many Blacks have adopted their own version of English as a sign of freedom – in contrast to Afrikaans, the language of oppression. The English-Spanish hybrid spoken in the United States and Mexico is known as Spanglish. All languages are works in progress. But English’s globalization, unprecedented in the history of languages will revolutionize it in ways we can only begin to imagine.

DO YOU KNOW THAT

Elizabeth II is the queen regnant of sixteen independent states known as the Commonwealth realms. All together, these countries have a combined population, including dependencies, of over 129 million. She holds each crown separately and equally in a shared monarchy, and carries out duties in and on behalf of all the states of which she is sovereign. In theory her powers are vast; however, in practice, and in accordance with convention, she rarely intervenes in political matters. During World War II, Princes Elizabeth Windsor trained as a driver and mechanic, drove a military truck, and rose to the rank of Junior Commander. She is, at present, “the only living head of state who served in uniform during World War II”. Although the first recorded proposal for a metric system was made in 1668 and the adoption of metric units has been discussed regularly by Parliament since 1818, the United Kingdom is still currently using non-metric units. The use of non-metric units as supplementary units is likely to continue beyond the projected end date of 2009. Informal usage of Imperial units remains widespread among people of all ages and the media, particularly for describing body measurements.

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